Monday, August 4, 2014

I don’t have cable or satellite TV to watch annual Shark
Week programs (beginning Aug. 10 this year), but it’s difficult to miss the
humorous trailers for the intentionally-bad horror film Sharknado, or see reruns of nature programs
on sharks. I remember when Shark Week was only a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live, known as Land Shark. ("Candygram!")

In a shameless bid for more readers of this 17th-century
historical research blog, I’ve had a Sharknado/brainstorm that you might enjoy
a bit about how sharks were perceived in the 1600s.

Sharks are well-known in Massachusetts Bay, Long Island
Sound, and in Narragansett Bay of Rhode Island, where the Dyers co-founded Newport. But in the years
of America’s
settlement, there were few accounts or images made of them. Governor John
Winthrop wrote about the “sea horse” or walrus of Sable Island,
and about the massive cod and halibut they caught off the Isles of Shoals in
June 1630. But he didn’t write of sharks, or the archaic word for them,
sea-dogs.

*****

In 1606, William Shakespeare refers to the “ravined salt-sea
shark” in Macbeth, act 4, scene 1. Part of the witches’ brew of
“bubble, bubble, toil and trouble” was the ingredient of the violent mouth and
gullet of a hungry shark.

Scale
of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches'
mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravined salt-sea shark,

Root
of hemlock digged i' th' dark,

…

Add
thereto a tiger’s chaudron,

For
the ingredients of our cauldron.

*****

1613:Scientist/artist: Ulisse AldrovandiOriginally published in:De Piscibus
Aldrovandi sometimes combined impressive realism (a recognizable thresher
shark) with puzzling chimera. The fish on the bottom has a mammal-like face
with a saw protruding from the head, dragon-like scales, fishy fins and
flippers.

In 1634, William Wood, a commissioned public relations
writer, published a book, New-Englands
Prospect, about the natural wonders of Massachusetts, to encourage Puritan
Englishmen to emigrate and make their fortunes. Here’s his description of the
shark, amid many other creatures of the land, air, and sea:

“The Sharke is a kinde of fish as
bigge as a man, some as bigge as a horse, with three rowes of teeth within his
mouth, with which he snaps asunder the fishermans lines, if he be not very
circumspect: This fish will leape at a mans hand if it be over board, and with
his teeth snap off a mans legge or hand if he be a swimming; These are often taken,
being good for nothing but to put on the ground for manuring of land.”

*****

In the whaling business, sharks were a worry to the men
processing the whale carcass. They had to work quickly to get the whale
dissected and onto the ship, before sharks could devour the valuable whale
carcass. And the whale oil on the decks could cause a man to slip and fall
overboard to the waiting sharks below.

1641: They survived the hurricane and shipwreck,but the sharks picked them off.

On Sept. 24, 1641, a hurricane wrecked a convoy of eight
Spanish treasure ships in the Florida Straits. When the small tender ship went
down 6 leagues (.33 kilometer) off Santiago,
Cuba, a priest
and other survivors attempted to swim ashore, but sharks ate them all. (I'm not sure who was left to report this detail, however! Perhaps someone on another ship of the convoy?) Vast
treasures of silver and gold were soon after recovered from the wrecks; even
more riches were recovered in the early 21st century.

Remarkably, on the other side of the Atlantic, one day
earlier, the treasure ship Merchant Royallwent
down 30 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall,
England. Though
men died, there were no reports of sharks in that incident.

*****

1648Scientist/artist: Ulisse AldrovaniOriginally published in:Musaeum Metallicum
Naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi recommended fossil shark teeth as an antidote for
snake venom, to be mixed in wine or water.

1662Scientist: Caspar SchottOriginally published in:Physica Curiosa
In his Physica Curiosa, Schott included scores of illustrations,
many of outlandish creatures, some closer to reality. What real-life animal
might have inspired this illustration isn't easy to guess. It has gills,
fringes, and a long curling tail, but the predominant feature is its gaping
mouth lined with sharp teeth. The teeth are shaped like those of a shark.

1667Scientist/artist: Niels StensenOriginally published in:Canis Carchariae
Dissectum Caput
Strange as it looks by today's standards, this picture of a dissected head of a
giant white shark actually marked significant progress in marine biology. For
years, fossilized shark teeth were believed to be tongues of serpents turned to
stone by Saint Paul,
and hence were named glossopetrae, or "tongue stones." Niels
Stensen correctly identified tongue stones as shark teeth, though he was not
the first person in history to do so. In fact, Steno's picture was derived from
a 16th-century unpublished work by papal physician Michele Mercati.

1670Scientist/artist: Agostino ScillaOriginally published in:Vain Speculation
Undeceived by SenseBaroque
Although Steno's depiction of a dissected shark head was a step forward in
scientific accuracy, Scilla felt he could improve upon Steno's work. Scilla was
an accomplished painter and a coin collector. He believed—and informed his
readers—that his experience in these fields gave him insights into fossils and
other natural specimens that others could not. Where others perhaps saw
uniformity in sharks and their teeth, Scilla saw individuality. He delivered
detailed depictions to different kinds of sharks, including a hammerhead,
advancing accuracy even a little further than Steno.

The 17th-century German Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher
established a fabulous museum in Rome.
These fish carcasses and shark teeth must have looked outlandish to the
visitors to Kircher's museum, but fish like these swim in the sea today. After
Kircher died, Buonanni took over his collection and published a catalog in the
early 18th century. These images from the catalog show some 18th-century progress
in accurately depicting sea life.

If you enjoy articles like this, you’ll love the book The Dyers of
London, Boston, & Newport(The Dyers #3), by
Christy K Robinson. It’s packed with illustrations, trivia, new research, and
facts about the people and culture of the 17th century.

The DYER books make great gifts!

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About Me

Christy is an author and editor whose biographical novels and nonfiction book on William and Mary Dyer were published in 2013 and 2014. Her hardcover book "We Shall Be Changed" (2010 Review & Herald) is also available. In September 2015 she published "Effigy Hunter," a nonfiction history and travel guide, and will follow that with a nonfiction book on Anne Hutchinson, then a historical novel set in England in the 1640s-1660s.